Tutorial: Stream your apps to Continuum with RemoteApp

Microsoft’s Continuum feature, found on the modern Windows 10 mobile devices, is a big company’s dream to define a new category of devices that are capable of being both phones on the go and PCs on the desk.

Where is Continuum now, and what we should expect in the future Updates

As always, there’s a huge difference between vision and execution of it.

In the beginning, Continuum only allowed you to project a second display through HDMI or DisplayPort via a special Dock. But just a few months later, a new Remote Desktop Preview application made it possible for users to connect to their remote desktops and access classic Win32 applications when needed. Later, an ability to project second screen wirelessly via Miracast emerged, as well as the option to turn off each of the screens independently of each other, or projecting second screen to a PC, or, finally, using copy/paste between RDP session and the host.

We also expect a few more great features coming to us in the next Updates, like multiple windows, window snapping, and more. The future is bright, indeed.

But as Continuum is doing its first baby steps, the chances are, you still need those old Win32 apps.

To RDP or not to RDP, this is the question

Although Continuum isn’t a new idea (well, thin client was proposed in 1990s, and we had terminals long, long time ago), its greatness lies in its combination with the UWP platform, enabling mobile apps to transform into desktop ones when projected to an external display. There are several great apps, with Edge, Office apps, Outlook, and even a Reddit client being great examples of desktop-like apps running in Continuum mode for you.

So, using RDP isn’t the always the best solution. To me it means you might want to run Win32 apps alongside with the UWP Continuum-enabled ones, instead of living in the RDP session from the beginning to the end.

Thankfully, there is a cool solution from Microsoft – RemoteApp.

What is RemoteApp (for Continuum)?

On a paper, RemoteApp is a cool idea. In case of Continuum you can get a tile for each of the RemoteApps you need, and each RemoteApp would essentially open a usual Win32 application (running remotely) as a standalone app on your Windows 10 mobile phone in Continuum mode. This means that you can use Alt+Tab to switch between different apps on a Continuum desktop, and your RemoteApps would participate in this process like all others.

Cool, huh?

You bet. But there is a catch.

All your RemoteApps will share the same RDP window. Which isn’t as great as you might want that to be.

Also, this solution is designed for enterprise customers, requiring you to either have a Windows Server equipped with RDS (Remote Desktop Services), or use an Azure Subscription with its Azure RemoteApps.

Sad news, Azure RemoteApps is a deprecated feature, as Microsoft plans to use Citrix’s Xen App “express” to deliver similar user experience for its Azure customers.

So, it looks like RemoteApp is now limited to RemoteApps for enterprises. And thus, to get one, you should have (or build) an infrastructure for that, with Windows Server and RDS feature on it, and the last time I checked, you needed two (2) servers to make this solution work.

Does it sound right? If you are in the corporate environment, sure. But if you have a powerful PC at home and wanna run one or two apps from it without creating a full RDP connection to it, you’re out of luck.

Well, not really.

There’s a way.

What do you need to stream RemoteApps from your Desktop PC to your Continuum?

How should it work?

We will use the ability of selected Windows SKUs to stream locally installed apps as RemoteApps, and we will use IIS to emulate Remote Desktop Services (RDS) website.